ERP Confab

Sentient documents, anticipatory interfaces and the next UI

ERP vendors have been eager to ride the generative AI wave, and it has become commonplace for them to assert that machine learning and other types of AI will revolutionize the way people interact with business applications and data. AI is already enabling natural language data queries and commands and starting to take over workflows that cross ERP modules. Chatbots are evolving from simple logic machines to become "smart" agents capable of communicating and making decisions like humans. The user interface will become so automated and abstracted from the underlying applications, proponents say, that users will rarely need to interact directly with back-end systems.
John Bates, CEO of Bonn, Germany-based SER Group, sees the next generation of software UIs as centering on the documents and other digital content that are the lifeblood of commerce. He says "sentient" documents will soon be developed that are self-aware enough to communicate what they are and the information they contain.  As documents become essentially conscious, they will be able to initiate actions, remove language barriers and glean fresh insights from enterprise data. Sentient documents will be the foundation of anticipatory UIs that can figure out what users need and execute processes for them, often before they have to ask.
In the podcast, he explains how sentient documents and anticipatory interfaces will work and the important role of AI.
Bates earned a Ph.D. in computer science from Cambridge University in 1994, after which he became a tenured professor leading research on distributed computing. He has held executive positions at Progress Software and Software AG and founded startups in algorithmic trading and the internet of things. He joined SER Group, which sells an enterprise content management platform called Doxis, in 2022, and is the author of the book, Thingalytics: Smart Big Data Analytics for the Internet of Things.
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
why today's AI hasn't achieved true intelligence, despite the claims of AI advocates
how the European Union's strict privacy regulations could stifle innovation
the importance of agentic AI in processing digital content
why people's enthusiasm for natural language interfaces is fading
Host: David Essex, Industry Editor, Informa TechTarget
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EY, SAP and the role of sustainability consulting

ERP increasingly serves as the hub of organizations' environmental sustainability strategies. But so far, it has mostly been used to standardize and automate the collecting and reporting of environmental, social and governance (ESG) data for customers, investors and regulators. There's a growing sense that ERP can be put to greater use if it's more closely integrated with enterprise technology that has a direct impact on sustainability, such as supply chain visibility, logistics and asset management, to effect real change.
This more ambitious vision of IT-driven sustainability calls for digital transformation of business processes and presents daunting development and integration challenges. So ERP vendors have set up partnerships with the professional services and Big Four accounting firms Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC to make it a reality.
One prominent example is EY's partnering with SAP to help customers implement sustainability through their SAP systems.
In this podcast, EY partner Marsha Reppy shares her experiences and insights on the challenges of sustainability and assesses where companies stand on the maturity curve. Reppy heads EY's sustainability consulting practice for the Americas, having joined the firm in 2006 after five years at Deloitte. She has worked for more than 20 years helping consumer products and retail companies with their digital transformation initiatives through technologies like analytics, AI and intelligent automation, and has extensive experience working with SAP systems.
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
what sustainability means in practice for organizations
the biggest technical challenges of sustainability
EY's role in the SAP partnership
Host: David Essex, Industry Editor, TechTarget
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How AI can improve ethical sourcing and sustainability

Supply chain sustainability is an ambitious strategy for managing the environmental, social and corporate governance impacts of product sourcing, manufacturing and delivery. But the inherent complexity of supply chains makes it difficult to ensure that each component in a product, from raw materials to subassemblies, finished goods, packaging and transportation, meet the environmental and labor regulations of countries and international organizations.  
Companies have long used information technology to manage their supply chains, but most still struggle to achieve adequate visibility into the practices of their suppliers. In recent years, the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement has brought new pressures from shareholders, customers and regulators for companies to collect and report data on their sustainability practices.
Artificial intelligence shows promise for helping organizations make sense of the enormous amounts of data needed for supply chain sustainability and for meeting increasingly strict ESG requirements.
RobobAI (pronounced "robo buy"), a vendor of spend analysis and procurement management software based in Sydney, Australia, is applying its AI-driven analytics platform to supply chain sustainability.
In this podcast, CEO Julian Harris explains how RobobAI works and how it monitors risks, such as raw materials from suppliers sanctioned for modern slavery. He also describes ways it supports diversity by, for example, identifying opportunities to employ indigenous labor.
A native of Wales, Harris held executive leadership positions at several IT service companies before co-founding RobobAI in 2017. He is also chairman of Search365, a company with offices in Australia and Singapore offering AI, analytics and search products for the financial services and government sectors.
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
where RobobAI fits in ERP and supply chain management software architectures
how it can improve supplier visibility by analyzing spend data from multiple ERP systems and other data sources
how Coca-Cola uses RobobAI to improve visibility into its suppliers
where the ESG movement stands today
Host: David Essex, Industry Editor, TechTarget
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Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and the ERP wars

Every major ERP vendor has strived to move its on-premises applications to the cloud and entice its customers to follow. Most still struggle to replicate the capabilities of their legacy ERP systems in software as a service (SaaS), and new products built in the cloud from the ground up tend to appeal more to first-time buyers. Cloud migration remains the industry's biggest challenge.
Oracle, which in most assessments ranks second to SAP in global ERP market share, appears to be winning the fight for SaaS ERP leadership among vendors with long histories in on-premises ERP. Its Fusion Cloud ERP is the most complete multitenant SaaS suite, bolstered in recent years with dozens of AI apps and a new user interface. What's more, Oracle underpins its applications with AI-infused Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and cloud versions of its flagship Oracle Database. It claims to be the only vendor with the complete cloud "stack," from foundational infrastructure to databases and business applications.
At its annual CloudWorld user conference this month in Las Vegas, Oracle wrote a new chapter in its cloud story with a raft of product introductions, including Oracle Database@AWS, which enables customers to access its AI-based Autonomous Database on Amazon Web Services, the leading public cloud. Oracle also unveiled new generative AI agents for Fusion Cloud ERP and supply chain applications, among other notable features.
In this podcast, Holger Mueller, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, shares his assessment of what the CloudWorld developments mean for Oracle's cloud strategy and its customers, and where they leave Oracle in its rivalry with SAP.
Before joining Constellation Research in 2013, Mueller spent over two decades in consulting and product development, including stints at Oracle, SAP and Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO). His research focuses on next-generation apps, human capital management and the future of work.
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
What the addition of the Redwood UI to Oracle NetSuite means for the popular SaaS ERP platform for SMBs
Why Oracle's rapidly rising, multi-billion-dollar investment in its own data centers shows how serious it is about using OCI to deliver AI to customers
Recent board departures at SAP, which leave it with perhaps the least experienced board since the company's founding
Host: David Essex, Industry Editor, TechTarget

Using AI, robots and analytics to improve warehouse visibility

Warehouses have long been the center of some of the most sophisticated information technology. RFID tags and readers, warehouse control systems, automated conveyors, voice picking and mobile devices are all commonly used to move goods and manage inventory with greater efficiency and precision.
Nowadays, the emphasis is on adding more autonomous technology that takes over some of the drudgery and risk from warehouse workers. Robots and artificial intelligence play an increasingly important role in warehouse operations.   
One company on the leading edge is London-based Dexory, which makes what it calls a warehouse intelligence platform that combines stock-scanning robots, analytics software, AI and digital twins. The vendor claims the system provides 99.9% inventory accuracy and significantly improves warehouse efficiency.
In this podcast, Dexory CEO Andrei Danescu explains how the platform improves warehouse visibility, automation and efficiency, as well as its broader implications for supply chain management and logistics.
Before co-founding Dexory (previously BotsAndUs) in 2015, Danescu held engineering roles in the automotive industry. He developed autonomous vehicle technology for Jaguar Land Rover and was a trackside systems engineer for a Formula One racing team, responsible for sensors, telemetry systems, data analytics and other technologies.
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
how the COVID-19 pandemic changed logistics
whether AI and robotics threaten the jobs of warehouse workers
the potential of warehouse data intelligence to further the long-sought goal of end-to-end supply chain visibility
Host: David Essex, Industry Editor, TechTarget

AI-enabled digital twins for smarter healthcare

Artificial intelligence and digital twins are probably the two most hyped information technologies of the 2020s. Yet both are already delivering practical benefits in fields ranging from industrial design and manufacturing to customer service and healthcare.
They are especially powerful when used together, with each helping to improve the other. Digital twins – virtual representations of real-world entities or processes – can supply the structured and comprehensive data AI needs for machine learning while AI adds analytical and predictive capabilities and automation that make digital twins more effective.
Technology vendors and researchers have been exploring ways AI-enabled digital twins can improve healthcare by, for example, virtualizing pharmaceutical trials, tailoring heart monitors to individual hearts or optimizing medical procedures. Some even envision someday building a digital twin of a patient.
In this podcast, Gary Shorter, head of AI at IQVIA, explains the challenges and potential of pairing digital twins with AI in healthcare. IQVIA provides data analytics technologies and clinical research services to the life sciences industry.
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
Why digital twins of patients are probably a long way off
Benefits of more narrowly focused digital twins of hearts, eyes and other organs
Ways AI and digital twins are being used now
Technology segments that are driving development of digital twins in the life sciences
Host: David Essex, Industry Editor, TechTarget

Ubiquitous generative AI at SAP Sapphire 2024

Ever since generative AI's debut in late 2022, ERP vendors have raced to embed its human-like communication, research and analytical capabilities into their software. Besides responding to customer demand for AI, they're keen to use the technology to make their complex systems easier to use and more responsive.
At its annual Sapphire 2024 conference in Orlando, Florida, the biggest ERP vendor, SAP, made generative AI the focus of almost every major product announcement, stage presentation and demo. It also announced AI partnerships with Nvidia, Microsoft and Google and significant enhancements to its Rise with SAP program, which is designed to ease the transition to SAP's newest ERP platform, S/4HANA Cloud.
In this podcast, TechTarget Industry Editor David Essex and News Writer Jim O'Donnell discuss the major developments at Sapphire and what they mean for SAP and its customers.
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
SAP's plans to make its Joule generative AI assistant the new user interface to its business applications
the surprise announcement that SAP is buying WalkMe, a digital adoption platform, for $1.5 billion dollars
how the role of implementation partners such as Deloitte, EY and PwC in S/4HANA migration is evolving
SAP's advocacy of an ERP "clean core" as a foundation for multitenant SaaS applications
where the Sapphire announcements leave SAP in the generative AI race against ERP competitors
Host: David Essex, Industry Editor, TechTarget

Understanding S/4HANA's impact on SAP customers

As the largest ERP vendor, SAP makes the software that runs much of the world's business. And whenever SAP makes a major change in its product portfolio, its customers often must scramble to adapt.
No change in the past two decades has had more impact than SAP's decision to replace its popular ERP Central Component (ECC) software and related Business Suite applications with S/4HANA, a new generation of ERP that only runs on SAP's HANA in-memory database. SAP is also pushing customers to change deployment models by moving off Business Suite and the first incarnation of S/4HANA – both of which run on premises – to cloud versions of S/4HANA. More recently, the technological tsunami from the 2022 introduction of generative AI is transforming the SAP product portfolio yet again.
Since 1991, Americas' SAP User Group (ASUG) has strived to help members through such changes with networking events, education and research on SAP products while serving as their advocate with SAP. ASUG claims to be the world's largest SAP user group with 130,000 members across North America.
In this podcast, ASUG CEO Geoff Scott shares member feedback and his personal take on SAP S/4HANA, cloud migration and generative AI with TechTarget Industry Editor David Essex and News Writer Jim O'Donnell.
Scott, who has been ASUG CEO since January 2014, came from senior IT roles that involved implementing and managing enterprise applications from SAP, Oracle and other vendors. He was CIO of TOMS, a footwear and apparel maker, and JBS, a global meat processor and distributor. Prior to that, he was a senior IT manager at Ford, after being CIO of Edcor Data Services and a consultant at PwC.
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
what to expect from the upcoming Sapphire conference in Orlando, which ASUG co-sponsors with SAP
the success of the Rise with SAP and Grow with SAP services for moving to S/4HANA
how ASUG manages its relationship with SAP to keep customer concerns front and center
Host: David Essex, Industry Editor, TechTarget

Digital adoption platforms for enterprise applications

E-learning technologies, such as online courses, instructional videos and augmented reality apps, are in hot demand at corporations. Much of that demand is driven by the sheer number and complexity of the software applications employees must learn to use.
It's a massive training and onboarding challenge, one that many organizations are addressing with a digital adoption platform (DAP), a layer of software that works inside applications to guide users through their daily tasks.
The market for DAPs is growing, according to research firms Gartner and IDC. Companies are using DAPs to streamline employee onboarding, speed up training, foster compliance and even handle some tech support. DAPs are also becoming important tools in digital transformation initiatives.
In this podcast, Krishna Dunthoori, founder and CEO of Apty, explains how DAPs work and how organizations are using them. Apty, founded in 2018, specializes in making DAPs to ease the adoption and use of enterprise applications, including Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday and Microsoft Dynamics ERP.
Dunthoori was previously founder and CEO of Excers Inc., which provides professional services for project portfolio management and enterprise software implementation. Before that, he was a solutions architect at the World Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.  
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
using DAPs in change management
where DAPs fit in learning and development strategies
Apty's plans to add generative AI to its platform
Host: David Essex, Industry Editor, TechTarget

Generative AI puts humans at the center of the customer service loop

For years, artificial intelligence has helped to improve customer service by making automated chatbots more intelligent and enabling voice-controlled phone menus. But now the human-like communication abilities of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT are helping contact-center agents find quick answers for customers. And despite AI's reputation as a soulless automaton, the newest generation of AI could instead help humanize customer service by letting agents spend less time searching for information so they can be more attentive to the feelings and needs of customers.
In this podcast, Brian McKenna, senior analyst of business applications at TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), shares the results of a recent ESG survey in which IT professionals revealed their contact-center challenges and technology plans. He explains the most common use cases of AI in customer service, names some of the leading vendors and gives his take on where the top-line business benefits will be.
 
McKenna is based in the London office of TechTarget, where he helps to direct ESG's analyst services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, covering business applications, information management and cybersecurity topics. Until recently, he was the longtime business applications editor at TechTarget's ComputerWeekly. He holds a degree in History and English from the University of Glasgow and a doctorate from the University of Oxford.
Other topics discussed in the podcast include:
whether generative AI threatens contact center jobs
where contact centers fit in overall IT spending
the risks of using AI in customer service
Host: David Essex, Industry Editor, TechTarget